Human Rights Glance
The State Department issued a terse statement last week saying, "an awareness day is not a strategy." The result is that on December 1, the United States is not commemorating World AIDS Day. It's the first time the U.S. has not participated since the World Health Organization created this day in 1988 to remember the millions of people who have died of AIDS-related illnesses and recommit to fighting the epidemic that still claims the lives of more than half a million people each year.
By contrast, last year former President Joe Biden held a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House with the AIDS Memorial Quilt — with coffin-shaped patches each honoring someone who had died of AIDS-related causes — spread out on the grass. And this year, despite the Trump administration's change of heart, countries around the world are marking the day with proclamations, public health campaigns and commemorative ceremonies.
President Trump has nothing planned for this year and the State Department has instructed employees not to mark the day.
Tommy Pigott, a spokesperson for the State Department, confirmed the decision not to commemorate the day, writing in a statement that the country is "modernizing our approach to countering infectious diseases" and that "under the leadership of President Trump, the State Department is working directly with foreign governments to save lives and increase their responsibility and burden sharing."
Some HIV/AIDS activists reacted with frustration to the news — and with protests.
"I think it's emblematic of an administration that doesn't seem to care," said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, a global HIV prevention organization based in the U.S.
The U.S. has consistently been the top financial supporter of the global fight against HIV/AIDS, primarily through President George W. Bush's President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which has invested more than $110 billion into the global effort since it launched in 2003.
An Israeli lawyer has alleged that his Palestinian client is being tortured and sexually assaulted in custody, saying the abuse intensifies each time he visits the detainee.
The ceasefire is broadly holding in Gaza, with Israeli forces inside the strip having pulled back to the so-called "yellow line." Still, renewed Israeli strikes killed dozens of Palestinians last week in response to what Israel alleged was a ceasefire violation by a Hamas gunman.
A 16-year-old American citizen was freed on Thursday after spending nine months in an Israeli prison.
In the occupied West Bank, much like in the Gaza Strip, Israeli policy is forcing thousands of Palestinians from their homes, in stark defiance of international law.
Ten-year-old Rateb Abu Qleiq sat in a rusted chair in front of his tent in Deir al-Balah. As he spoke, he unconsciously swung his right leg, which was amputated just below the knee, back and forth—the stub tracing a short arc in the air. On his lap he cradled a makeshift prosthetic, nothing more than a piece of plastic sewage pipe outfitted with an orange covering secured by a piece of string.
